DC++: Just These Guys, Ya Know?

Running DC++ 0.790 on the Windows 8 preview

poy — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 13:58:12 +0000

Hey,

When you try to run DC++ 0.790 on the Windows 8 preview, you will probably notice that network connections don’t work (they fail with the message: “An invalid argument was supplied.“).

We tried a few fixes but to no avail. It is not clear whether the blame is to be placed upon DC++ or Windows 8.

Fear not, for the fix is easy: just set the “Socket read buffer” option (in Settings > Experts only) to 0. Then enjoy!

We will be watching out for this problem when the next Windows 8 beta versions come out. Hopefully the issue is on their end. :P

Notice anything else that is out of place? Don’t hesitate to let us know!

The new DC++ release is approaching…

emtee — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:37:23 +0000

…and there’s a LOT of improvements and changes to come. As usual this means a lot of new strings and Help text waiting for localization. As the release is expected during the holidays we ask all the volunteers to update their translations at Launchpad as soon as possible. The procedure is open to anyone who wants to help, it’s recommended to use Launchpad’s easy-to-use web based translator but you can work with the conventional POEdit as well.

Thank you everyone for the effort!

Domain changes and other information

Fredrik Ullner — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:20:17 +0000

A team of architects is building a highway.

One of these architects is in charge of building a vital bridge. His construction work is going well; although the bridge needs consolidations here and there, people have already started driving over it.

One day, the bridge architect has a disagreement with his architect colleagues. He therefore chooses to leave the construction company and focus on other projects.

However, he is still bitter about his ex-colleagues. He secretely hopes the highway never gets successful. To his dismay, the construction project keeps going on and the highway keeps being extended. The bridge he was in charge of is still being used.

Consumed by his jealousy, he decides to place a few packs of dynamite at strategic points of the bridge. He then makes the whole bridge explode while there were still people over it.

It might have been his bridge while he was overseeing its construction, but it was not anymore when he chose to leave the construction company. By destroying the bridge on a whim, he does more than destroy his own work: he also destroys the work of the builders; he kills the people who were enjoying the bridge when it exploded; he forces his ex-colleagues to build a new bridge (fortunately, they still have the blueprints).

He could have left the construction company with dignity, but he ended up as a jerk.

The domain adcportal.com is down and the project adcportal at SourceForge has been removed. It was the decision of the domain’s owner.

The project is gone, and with it is the forum and wiki as well. Backups exist, but whether it’s for the forum and wiki is too soon to tell. All I can say is that there will be an effort to try and restore some parts, while other parts will be discarded. I can’t tell you a time schedule, as time is always a limiting factor.

A new project, dcnetwork has been created, together with a new domain dcbase.org (now pointing at DC++, but will not in the future). The intention of the domain and project is to serve as a hub (pun intended) within DC, or at least for some of the content.

The DC development hub address is now adcs://hub.dcbase.org:16591, so be sure to change your clients.

It is unfortunate times, as it always is when losing resources, but new resources will be up as soon as time permit.

New account for Twitter; DCBase

Fredrik Ullner — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 23:24:57 +0000

Quick post, but just want to let everyone know that DCBase is what is going to used in the future for tweets.

Software and code for TTH generation and validation

Fredrik Ullner — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 21:42:53 +0000

There are multiple sites dedicated for providing information about generation and validatation of TTHs. There are many languages written to handle TTHs, so you should see this list as a small selection of all the implementations out there.

TigerTree Hash Code project at SourceForge intend on providing implementations for multiple languages.

ThexCS – TTH (tiger tree hash) maker in C# at CodeProject intend to provide a UI for simple TTH generation.

tthsum is probably the most widely known stand-alone application that can generate TTHs. The TTH generation was the one from DC++, but later changed to the original Tiger authors’ implementation. tthsum is in most Linux distributions.

Obviously, DC clients can generate TTHs…

Don’t forget that you can make topic suggestions for blog posts in our “Blog Topic Suggestion Box!”

DC++ adds GeoIP database auto-updating

iceman50 — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:48:38 +0000

Well, the title pretty much says it all, but let me give you a brief little look into GeoIP (Auto-Updater too of course!) and what it means along with some background about some of the changes to GeoIP itself. As of bzr revision 2620, a fully automatic GeoIP database updater has been included with DC++. What does this mean to you? Well, simply put you won’t have to go to MaxMind’s website to update the GeoIP database. GeoIP allows you to see the country code (e.g US, UK, etc.) in the Userlist, Transferview and Search windows under the country column (IP column in the search window).

Along with the auto-updater came another change allowing you to actually select the kind of country code you would like to see. E.g if you wanted to see, say, UK – United Kingdom (the DC++ default) it would be %[2code] – %[name] , but you’re not limited to just that! Here’s a list of the new parameters you can use:

%[2code] – show a 2 letter country code (e.g US, GB)
%[3code] – show a 3 letter country code (e.g USA, GBR)
%[name] – show the full country name (e.g United States, United Kingdom)
%[continent] – show the continent code (e.g NA, EU)

You will be able to set your own customized country format in the next release of DC++, the setting will be located on the Appearance Page (Settings > Appearance Page) just look for “Country format”!

Don’t forget that you can make topic suggestions for blog posts in our “Blog Topic Suggestion Box!”

BerliOS to shut down operations on 2011-12-31

Fredrik Ullner — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 18:10:15 +0000

BerliOS will go out of service later this year, and will as such cause projects to go dark. If you have a DC project (or, well, any project for that matter) on BerliOS, now is the time to switch hosts.

There are multiple other hosts, and I’ve only used a subset.

Some suggestions:
Launchpad
Bitbucket
SourceForge
Github
Savannah
Freshmeat
Google Code

Don’t forget that you can make topic suggestions for blog posts in our “Blog Topic Suggestion Box!”

How to crash DC++ 0.674

cologic — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 13:53:54 +0000

$ADCGET list //// 0 -1 ZL1|

A previous blog post mentions this, but apparently isn’t sufficiently explicit about what to send.

I aim to fix that.

Enjoy, all. This apparently works on DC++ clients older than 0.707 which still support $ADCGET.

The GPL is not a EULA

cologic — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 18:10:43 +0000

GPL software therefore gain nothing by prompting the user to agree to or disagree with the GPL and DC++ will stop doing so. This holds both for the GPLv2 and GPLv3:

Some software packaging systems have a place which requires you to click through or otherwise indicate assent to the terms of the GPL. This is neither required nor forbidden. With or without a click through, the GPL’s rules remain the same.

Merely agreeing to the GPL doesn’t place any obligations on you. You are not required to agree to anything to merely use software which is licensed under the GPL. You only have obligations if you modify or distribute the software. If it really bothers you to click through the GPL, nothing stops you from hacking the GPLed software to bypass this.

The upcoming version of DC++ therefore does not ask the user to assent or otherwise to the GPL during installation.

Interestingly, several other top-ranking GPL-using SourceForge projects, about half of the tested sample, equally uselessly also require Windows users to agree to the GPL before allowing installation:

Distributing non-GPL DC++ mods infringes copyright

cologic — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 04:19:09 +0000

DC++ is licensed under the GPL, which requires that “the source code of the modified version is available to the users”. Courts support the GPL’s binding power in Germany and the US, while companies in additional countries such as the Netherlands (second Dutch case) and Taiwan have found it worthwhile to settle rather than fight. Several DC++ modifications, most prominently GreylinkDC++ and its derivatives, violate the GPL by not releasing source code, and thus lose eligibility for redistribution under the GPL. Absent such explicit GPL-provided allowance, websites and other media distributing them commit copyright infringement.

The DC++ project supports, instead, usage of one of the non-license-violating clients listed at ADCPortal.